Monday, 7 March 2011

It has been some time since I did anything so awesome that it deserved an epic entry and, when you think about it, that is a good thing. BUT in every life, some rain must fall...or in my case, good judgment goes out for a smoke break.

I'm not that big into makeup, but I am into big makeup. By this I mean I love a stick of makeup that can double as eyeshadow and eyeliner. Do any of you remember a Cover Girl campaign a few years back where smiley faced, clear skinned girls held up their hands to the camera and said "5 minutes!"? They were implying that when you apply your makeup, this is how long it should take at the most. Well, for me 5 minutes is too long. If I take 5 minutes to do my makeup it's because I've either fallen asleep against the mirror, or I've done something really awesome like, cut my finger on the pencil sharper I bought to sharpen my extra large eyeshadow/eyeliner pencil.

You may be thinking, why go to all this trouble? Why bother with makeup at all if 5 minutes is too long a time for facial maintenance and injury lies around every glamour inducing corner? I'll tell you why...death warmed over. I don't have naturally radiant, winter white glowing skin that needs no makeup to look healthy and alive. I have the pasty face goodness rivaled only by walking dead creatures known as zombies. So, it's not vanity really, but a process I use almost daily to avoid questions by family, friends and strangers about the state of my well being.

But I digress...

This entry is supposed to be about my awesomeness + pencil sharpener...not a look into my psychological need not be asked if I've been to a doctor lately.

Quite a few weeks back, I bought a lovely eyeliner/eye shadow pencil from Avon.(Celadon Green if you're curious) It did what I hoped it would do.It brought my maintenance time down even more and nearly erased my oh so chic sunken winter look. However, once it became flat headed and needed sharpening, I realized I didn't have a sharpener big enough for said pencil. So, I went out and purchased one at a giant retail outlet and when I got home I went about sharpening my pencil for another round of my hurried face regime. It did the job quickly and I was satisfied with the result except for the fact that the eye makeup is stickier than say, a pencil crayon and it left a fair amount of green goo stuck on the blade. So what did I do? I wiped it off. Yip, without giving it a cautious thought I ran my right index finger down the near razor sharp blade and pulled back a green and red digit. Oooweee...that not so smart maneuver really did well...smart! It bled through a couple of plain bandages, but fortunately like the last time I came up against a pencil sharper (see Awesome blog entry from Dec 2009) Batman saved the day. (I apologize, but this time I have no picture to post).

All this being said, this finger slicing moment brought on by not thinking about what I was doing, reminded me of a time I did something similar and even though at the time I knew it was foolish and would probably hurt myself, I did it anyway.

When Sorcha was a wee one she watched a lot of CBC kids and was always thrilled when Patty, the very likable host, put on her fireman's hat. Sorcha, like many a 3 year old had one too and would run and get it to wear it along with Patty. However, the silly thing didn't fit quite right and would always fall off her head. I, being a somewhat resourceful woman, decided to put a string on the thing to stop the whining - I mean to help keep it on her head. I told Sorcha my plan and went to the kitchen to put holes in the flimsy plastic where I would then insert yarn for the tying on all would be right in the world.

I went to the counter and grabbed a knife from the block and got to work. Now, as I mentioned earlier, as I stood at the sink, trying to work the rather sharp steak knife into the shiny red hat, it crossed my mind that what I was doing probably wasn't the brightest thing I'd ever attempted and that I should probably stop or I would cut myself. It even crossed my mind that perhaps I should at least put the hat on a cutting board and not be attempting to put a hole in it while holding it in mid air...

Did I stop? Are you kidding? Of course not! I must have felt a lesson in the air because I went on with my foolishness! With much pushing and a little cursing, the knife finally went through the hat's brim and then deftly cut the side of my index finger on left hand. I dropped the knife and hat into the sink and grabbed a lot of paper towel. The pain was present and grew rabidly, but at first all I felt was a sort of dull, cool numbness and a whole lot of stupid. While squeezing the life out of my finger to stop the bleeding, Sorcha came in to see what was taking me so long.

The conversation, to the best of my recollection, went like this:

"Mummy, have you fixed my hat?"

"Not yet...I had a bit of an accident."

"But I want my hat back!"

"Sweetie, Mummy cut her finger so you're going to have to wait."

"But I want my hat!"

"Ok, you want to see why Mummy isn't done fixing your hat? Here!"

And it was then, in a moment of frustration brought on by pain and stupidity, that I shoved my bloody digit into her wee face for her to witness up close exactly why there was a holdup on her hat fixing situation was. She screamed...and ran away...I sighed and got some more paper towel. It wasn't my proudest parenting moment, no one barged in on my life lesson and gave me a "Mother of the Year" award, but it sure got the point across and she didn't bug me about the whereabouts of her hat again. The best part was that when I went back to examine the surgery on the hat, it proved to be botched; instead of putting a simple hole in it, I'd actually just sliced clean through the brim. I later had to tape it and make another hole, but by then I'd wised up and instead made Sorcha's hat user friendly by making holes for string with a one hole punch instead of a knife.

The cut on my finger from the pencil sharpener has healed and left no visible mark. However, I do have a faint scar on my finger from the "hat incident" which is probably for the best. Whenever I notice it I'm reminded that while I may not always be the sharpest knife in the drawer, at least I am one of the most awesome.